


Wit's End

by SkinXLess



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-09
Updated: 2014-11-09
Packaged: 2018-02-24 17:39:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,279
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2590406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SkinXLess/pseuds/SkinXLess
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Harry won't stop crying, leaving James and Lily at their wits end.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Wit's End

**Author's Note:**

> Song used: "Jesse's Girl" by Rick Springfield  
> I don't own Harry Potter or Rick Springfield, though I'd like to.

“The baby won’t stop crying!” James exclaimed, exasperated. He held baby Harry in his hands as if he were a bomb, arms carefully extended.

His wife, Lily, sat in the rocking chair by the window, hands tangled in her red hair. “There has to be something we haven’t tried.” She struggled to be heard over the wailing baby. “My mum always said she’d sing to me and Tuney and we’d hush right up.”

“We’ve been singing to him, Lils. He just thinks it’s some kind of hard rock duet and out screams us.”

“Well I would scream too, if someone were holding me and singing “I’m a Little Cauldron, Small and Round” at me off key.”

“I’m sorry that I don’t know how to sooth a baby. You see, I’m kind of only twenty-one years old. I didn’t anticipate being a father right now.” James regretted the words as soon as they left his lips, but he didn’t take them back. He was exhausted. Harry cried at all hours, pooped almost as much. James was drowning in diapers, and Merlin knows he was getting stir crazy in stupid Godric’s Hollow. He went from young soldier on the front lines of the worst wizarding war the world had ever seen to teen parent on house arrest. It just wasn’t where he had imaged his life would turn out.

But then his wife rose from her seat on the rocking chair, scrubbing tears from her eyes, “You think I’m not tired too, James? I’m just as young as you and have no idea what I’m doing either. What kind of mother cant stop her baby from crying? Isn’t that the most basic thing there is?” just as she finished, Harry let out another piercing wail, and James began bouncing him in his arms.

Lily let out a noise of frustration, storming across the room to her muggle radio. She angrily switched it on. She wanted to drown out the baby for a minute, to get some kind of peace. To not think about how she and James had made a huge mistake.

“Lils – look, I shouldn’t have said –” James began, but Lily held up her hand, silencing him. She turned the music up louder.

“Jesse is a friend. Yeah, I know, he’s been a good friend of mine but lately something’s happened that ain’t –”

“You can’t drown us out, Lily.” James took a step towards his wife.

This time Lily started singing along with Rick Springfield. “Jesse’s got himself a girl and I wanna make her mine.” 

“Lily –”

“And she’s watchin’ him with those eyes…”

“Love, please –”

“And she’s lovin’ him with that body, I just know it.”

Harry cooed as he watched his mother sing even louder still, attempting to drown out her husband. He clapped his small chubby hands together, as if to say “More! More!” James continued to vie for his wives forgiveness overhead, but Harry was transfixed on the singing redhead. But why wasn’t daddy singing? They should both sing the funny tune. Harry tugged on the collar of James’s shirt, urging him to make the funny mouth noises too.

James stopped mid sentence, as if just woken from a trance. He looked down at the smiling baby in his arms, his hazel eyes growing wide. “Lils,” he said. Then he repeated it again, louder. “Lils!”

Lily finally stopped singing for a moment, “Yes?”

James looked from his son to his wife, “Harry stopped crying.”

“What?”

“Harry. Stopped. Crying.”

Her green eyes grew wide as she registered that, yes, he had stopped crying. She rushed over, taking Harry into her own arms. “But, how? Surely he doesn’t like mummy and daddy fighting?”

“I think it’s the song. He pretty much stopped when the radio came on.”

Lily burst out laughing, taking James by alarm. “Are you alright?” He asked, hesitant to touch her.

“James,” she began, before losing herself in even more laughter. “Our baby likes Rick Springfield. Here I was at my wits end, when all Harry wanted was a little top 40. And why shouldn’t he? Top 40 is Top 40 for a reason.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” James began, “But if it stops Harry from crying I’m just going to nod and pretend I do.”

Lily looked up at him, through a curtain of messy red hair. “We can figure this out, yeah? The whole being parents thing?”

“I believe so,” James grinned.

 

Unbeknownst to the young couple, two dark figures were approaching the outside of their house, cloaks trailing behind them as they walked. Two young men, both tall and lean, conversed among themselves as they made their way up the walk.

“I’m telling you,” Sirius Black was saying, gesturing wildly for emphasis, “the Chudley Cannons might actually win something this year.”

“And I am telling you,” countered Remus Lupin, “that even I know enough about Quidditch to know that that’s not true.”

“You’re wasting you galleons by betting on anyone else.”

“It’s a good thing I’m broke and unemployed, then, since I have no galleons to waste.”

Sirius knocked on the door of their best friend’s house, but there was no answer. The two men exchanged a worried look before he knocked once more.

Again, no answer.

“They can’t be out,” Sirius said, “they’re not supposed to leave.”

“Which means…” Remus gulped, unable to even voice his fears. It was then that they heard a horrible screeching wail come from inside, and they both instinctively threw their shoulders against the door, breaking it down.

The living room was empty, but more horrid wails were coming from upstairs. Both men’s minds were full of the worst case scenario. What would they find? Their friends’ bodies, crumpled and bleeding? Scorch marks where James and Lily used to stand? And what of Harry? They stumbled over one another, the awful noises getting louder as they approached the nursery.

Sirius and Remus spared no time, throwing themselves through the crack open door, and what they saw was hardly what they had expected.

“YOU KNOW I WISH THAT I HAD JESSE’S GIRL!” James and Lily warbled out together, the source of the horrible noises. Baby Harry bounced in his mother’s arms, shining eyes watching his parents, and a grin splitting half his face. “I WANT – I WANT JESSE’S GIRL! WHERE CAN I FIND A WOMAN LIKE THAT?”

The two order members stood in the doorway, watching their closest friends in awe. Lily’s hair was stringy and unwashed, her small frame covered by an oversized sweater, and dark circles lingered under her eyes. James’ hair was even messier than usual and his shirt was covered in what Sirius seriously hoped was not vomit stains.  
They two looked absolutely mental as they crooned horrid muggle music to their child.

“Have you all gone around the bin?” Sirius asked, getting the couples attention.

The couple started, instinctively turning to shield the baby from the intruders.

James looked at his friends, his wand already at the ready. “For Merlin’s sake, you can’t just burst in on us unannounced.”

Remus surveyed the scene, “Obviously or we might just walk in on whatever this is.”

“We’re getting Harry to stop crying,” Lily explained. “He likes pop music.”

Sirius scoffed, “No one likes pop music.”

“No need to be pretentious, Sirius.” Lily snapped. “Now, do you want to help or do you want to leave? Because I swear, if this baby starts crying again, I’m hexing the both of you.”

Sirius and Remus looked at each other, and then back to their friends.

Finally, Remus shrugged, “Well, why the hell not?”

“YOU KNOW I WISH THAT I HAD JESSE’S GIRL!”


End file.
